Transportation Disasters Research Articles

Bereavement and mourning after a shipping disaster: The case for intervention

This paper describes the help given by the social services department of a shipping company to bereaved families following a shipping disaster. In the absence of clear, factual and prompt information from an authoritative source, there is a tendency for bereaved individuals to deny their loss and thereby delay the process of mourning and eventual recovery. Appropriate intervention and support can help to overcome this tendency as was seen in the Madasa case.

Nonlinear effects for ship motion in heavy seas

A number of ship disasters took place in succession during the past several years in the North Pacific Ocean, and investigations of ship’s responses among high waves have been done in order to clarify the mechanism of the disasters. The first two aut

Medical Examiner/coroner Jurisdiction in Cases Involving Federal Interests

Under state laws, a medical examiner or coroner is charged with the investigation of sudden, unexpected, violent, and unexplained deaths. In several situations where there are federal interests, there may be conflict as to whether the jurisdiction belongs to state or federal authorities. Some situations of possible conflict--death on a military installation, military aircraft accidents, mass transportation disasters, and executive and congressional assassinations--are reviewed.

Oil Pollution of the Cape Infanta Coastline

Observations on oil pollution over the past 24 years have been made along the Cape Infanta coastline. Although no shipping disasters have occurred in the area, the oil cover of the rocks has increased markedly in places, with signs of affecting the intertidal fauna. It is concluded that the cumulative pollution by oil under present conditions may in time produce results similar to those encountered after large oil spills.

The KIHANSEN on The Inland Sea (2)

In this paper, the authors studied the wooden cargo ship disasters on the Inland Sea with the aid of 621 materials presented to the Regional Maritime Bureau, and obtained an approximate equation which shows the relation between cargo weight and freeboard.Nextly they examined the rolling of the type ship in the waves whose nature readily estimated with the Darbyshire's method, and confirmed the conclusions of the previous paper about their safety at sea.

Mother And Baby Care in Pictures

sion. Operations were carried on, oftentimes almost without funds. Mobs were subdued and their energies shaped to useful ends. Well meaning but foolish or ignorant donors and wouldbe helpers often proved as great problems as the emergencies. What could be more embarrassinig than to have the millers of Minneapolis send enough flour to San Francisco in 1906 literally to block the avenues of transit and to suffice the inhabitants for 10 years! Or, the case of the Yakima farmer who placed a note in a sack of potatoes (of which that fertile Washington valley sent trainloads to Ohio flood sufferers in 1913), and who received, later, a letter from an irate Cincinnatian who had paid full price for the potatoes on the open market, and to have a great Oregon newspaper get hold of the incident-with all the explanation which had to follow-and yet everything was strictly according to Hoyle, when the facts became known. No moving picture ever spun its tale more interestingly, or with better themes or more rapid changes of scene. The mine disaster, the forest fire, the volcano which burst without warning in far away Luzon, border warfare and intimate glimpses of the Madero-Villa revolution, ship disasters, etc., and the parts played by women and nurses, doctors and hospitals, philanthropists and governments, railroads and battleships, and so on without end. The reader gains a coherent idea of the evolution of the American Red Cross during its formative years and, in the aftermaths of catastrophes, the triumph of case work over stultified relief. The development of the Christmas Seals as a means of funding local and national Red Cross, and especially tuberculosis work, forms an interesting interlude. We have in this volume the memories of a man who was constantly being found out and called to greater responsibilities. A study of the bases upon which he made his decisions is worth any one's time. A suitable index accompanies. EMERY R. HAYHURST

Recent Development of Design of Boat Davits

The paper begins with an account of the recent welcome tendency of decreasing. ship disasters, year after year, owing to the result of advance of ships' life saving appliances; and then proceeds to examine how many sorts of boat davits and their accessories have been proposed, invented, or tried in the latest twenty five years together with some suggestions as to how minute and cautious consideration should be paid to the boat davit design in future, giving some instances of actual ship disasters.

The Recent Storms in the Atlantic

THIS subject has attracted the notice of the New York Herald, which, in an article on the 23rd January, remarks that “the successive gales appear to have been connected with the high barometer or polar airwaves which have recently swept across the northern part of the United States” Our contemporary says, moreover, that the last “great barometer fluctuation was followed by a storm centre which the weather reports recorded on the 19th inst. as then moving eastward over the Gulf of St. Lawrence.... In fact, the lesson apparently deducible from the recent steamer detentions and ship disasters we had to record is, that the severest cyclones may be looked for as the sequel phenomena of-the great winter areas of high barometer and intense cold; or, in other words, the rising glass should be studied by the seaman as carefully as the falling glass.”